Noise ordinance discussed at meeting

A possible update to the old noise ordinance brought out several community members to the village board meeting Nov. 5.

The community members were all neighbors of the Elevate Church, 1060 E. Jackson St., who all expressed concerns that the new ordinance may not deal with music problems they have been having with the church.

Ranta noted that they had a meeting with the church to try and solve the noise problem, but police have continued to be called out. Ranta added that in the past 16 months, the police were called 55 times.

“We gave them a simple solution: turn it down. That’s all we asked for,” Bill Martin said.

The revised ordinance states that, “Any noise which unreasonably disturbs, injures, or endangers the comfort, repose, health, peace or safety of reasonable persons of ordinance sensitivity” are prohibited. Exemptions are made for activities conducted on public or school grounds and church bells between the hours of 8 a.m.-10 p.m., among other exemptions.

The ordinance was drafted by village attorney Tom Davies and police chief Craig Hilliard.

“There’s not going to be a perfect ordinance here, as you can see. There has to be a lot of room for common sense,” Davies said.

The previous ordinance listed a distance of 50 feet to measure noise problems, but Davies said that was mainly to measure problems with barking dogs. The revised ordinance has no set distance.

There were no representatives from the church at the meeting. Mayor Norm Durflinger added that he is meeting with the church this week.

The revised ordinance will be posted for the public to view and comment on up until the Nov. 19 meeting, when it will be back on the agenda.